Wireless networks often exchange information in the form of frames that include multiple symbols (e.g., bits). For example, a standard for such a network is being developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11ah task group. More particularly, the IEEE 802.11ah standard will attempt to provide an efficient protocol, that can enable, for example, small battery powered wireless devices (e.g. sensors) to use Wi-Fi (802.11) to connect to the Internet with very low power consumption. IEEE 802.11ah is being developed to support a transmission range of 1 km for the sensor/metering use case. The number of associated stations for this type of application is expected to be much larger than 2007 stations, which is the current maximum limit for the AID (association ID). Such wireless networks often employ sets of frames that have common bit sequences. A set of such frames is referred to herein as a “flow”. Thus, such flows may exhibit duplicated information. As a result, the size of frames in such flows may be larger than desired.
It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, elements illustrated in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements are exaggerated relative to other elements for clarity. Further, where considered appropriate, reference numerals have been repeated among the figures to indicate corresponding or analogous elements.